News

The Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) is seeking to recruit four trustees from a variety of backgrounds to join our Board and drive forward our vision of a Scotland where every person’s right to live in a healthy environment is fully realised. The Board of Trustees has collective responsibility for the overall governance of ERCS, the determination of ERCS’s strategy, business plan and organisational policy, and currently delegates the day-to-day management and operational work of the organisation to the development manager and her small team. The time commitment for trustees in these critical start up years is one day a month. We are particularly looking for trustees with fundraising, organisation building, legal expertise, health inequalities and human and children’s rights experience. We are also seeking a Treasurer to provide financial oversight and guidance to the Board. You will have financial or accounting qualification and appropriate knowledge, and the capacity to spend additional time on detailed finance matters. There is no remuneration; however, all necessary travel and out of pocket expenses will be reimbursed. Previous board-level experience would be beneficial. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – men and women, people of all ages, sexual orientations, nationalities, religions and beliefs.  However, we particularly encourage applications from women, disabled, and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates, as these groups are underrepresented on boards in Scotland. If you feel you have the passion, experience and time to commit, please contact Shivali Fifield, Development Manager at sfifield@ercs.scot, or Campbell Gemmell, …

On Tuesday 22 September, ERCS will be co-facilitating a workshop on ‘Urban Environmental Justice for All?’ at this year’s virtual conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). We welcome participation by all. Places will be limited so please sign up by e-mailing Meri Juntti on M.Juntti@mdx.ac.uk. 

The 1st of September is an exciting day for the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland: It is the day we go live with our website www.ercs.scot, so please circulate to your networks. Enquiries for advice can be submitted on-line and we will acknowledge within 3 working days; It is the day we adopt our constitution and formally appoint our trustees: Mary Church, Clare Symonds, Lloyd Austin, Deborah Long, Ben Christman, Aedán Smith, and Campbell Gemmell as Chair; Last, but not least, we are also delighted to welcome Emilia Hanna as our part-time advocacy officer and Emma Donaldson as our part-time administrator. Emilia and Emma will join Ian and Shivali for the next phase in our journey to advance the right of everyone to live in a healthy environment.

Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) will be recruiting a part-time admin worker (4 hours a week) to support our work until the end of the year – details will be circulated in the next couple of weeks.  As part of our programme on Advocacy in Policy and Law Reform, we will soon be playing a significant role supplementing the existing efforts of LINK members to bring Scotland into compliance with the ‘access to justice’ pillar of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.   In the same vein, we have produced a third information sheet in our Public Education programme, covering ‘Access to justice on the environment, and whether Scotland is providing it’.  We continue to monitor Covid-19-related changes in environmental regulation and enforcement. Please contact us with examples, good or bad, or for further information.